Fish Wrap: Fishing community hoping to pass environmental awareness on to the next generation

VETERAN ANGLERS and biologists in Marin County are hoping to hand off the torch of fishing and environmental awareness to the next generation. The conservation group Trout Unlimited, the Department of Fish and Game, and the Marin Municipal Water District have all been stepping up efforts to introduce children as young as 6 and 7 to the biology of trout and the art of pursuing and catching them, along with bass, catfish, and other species.

"These kids are going to grow up someday," said Novato fly fisherman Larry Lack, who is the education chair of Trout Unlimited's North Bay chapter. "They'll be voters, and many will become fly fishermen."

The goal is ultimately to instill ethics of conservation and ecological stewardship into children, who are increasingly estranged from the outdoors by television, computers, and other technological diversions.

At the heart of Trout Unlimited's kid-geared undertakings is its "First Cast" program, now entering its 12th year. The program hosts groups of children for seminars on knot-tying, fly tying, "reading" the water, and fly casting.

Lack added, "After our numbers went from 22 [kids] the first year to about 42 by the fifth year, we added a seventh station, spin casting, so the kids could sense the difference between loading a rod using bait or lure, compared to loading the rod using simply the mass of the fly line."

These fishing instructionals are held at the Marin Civic Center each fall. Follow-up outings bring the kids closer still to the fish — usually at either the Marin French Cheese Company's pond, which is laden with bass and sunfish, or Putah Creek, just downstream of the Lake Berryessa Dam and the home of wild and very feisty trout.

Kids need not travel far to find fish that will bend a rod double. In the lakes of the Marin Municipal Water District, recent trout plants — including two this week — have introduced unusually large fish to Bon Tempe Lake, thanks to the Department of Fish and Game's "Fishing in the City" program, which aims to engage urban youth in angling and conservation. Some of the fish recently planted are 16 inches long and two pounds in weight and were reared in hatchery systems as far away as Oregon and Idaho.

While folks with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals or various animal shelters might not believe it, young fishermen often grow up into committed animal lovers and environmentalists.

"For people who go fishing, there's a real and obvious natural connection between fishing and nature," said Gregory Andrew, the fishing program manager with the Marin Municipal Water District. "This connection happens naturally by virtue of just being outdoors and in nature. Our hope is that this connection will foster in our youth, and later in their children."

In the classroom, too, children are engaging with the world's most popular fly fishing target — again thanks to Trout Unlimited. Through a program called "Trout in the Classroom," the group provides fertilized rainbow trout eggs to elementary and middle schools around the Bay Area each February.

Over a period of several weeks, the eggs — kept in aerated fish tanks — hatch into tiny trout. Eventually, each class releases the fish into the wild. The outflow of Lake Lagunitas has been a frequent site of these kid-assisted operations.

Numerous surveys and studies have concluded that children in developed nations are spending less and less time outdoors, with electronic screens providing mind-numbing diversion for up to seven hours of each day (that according to the National Wildlife Federation's website). It's certain that even fewer children are actually standing in a stream, wielding a fly rod and watching for rising fish. Thus, fishing and outdoors advocates may find themselves facing an upstream battle as they try to coax the younger generations out of the house and into the water.

But as any angler knows, it may only take a single strike, and a single fish on the line, to hook an angler for life.

A Surge in Sturgeon

In the Bay, sturgeon fishing has become the hottest game in town. The season's huge rains — already four and five times what we had received for the year as of last Christmas — have turned the water brown and brackish and turned on the fish's collective appetite.

One angler fishing alone near the Pumphouse recently hooked seven in a day and landed five, plus a limit of striped bass, using mud shrimp. Three of the sturgeon were over the 66-inch maximum size limit.